Colossal, Stupendous, Brobdingnagian -- and BIG!!

Rating: 7/10 (11 July 2008)

Darryl F. Zanuck's epic story of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944 boggles the mind with its scope and ambition. It's properly called "Darryl F. Zanuck's" movie because the cigar-chomping Goy from Wahoo, Nebraska, is the prime mover. Without him, and without the four-million-dollar infusion of his own financial blood, it would never have been made. Zanuck was just coming off a series of flops at the time ("Satan Never Sleeps"?) and this was his last big shot. He controlled everything. He inserted an important part for his then-girlfriend, Irene Demick, during the demise of his marriage. Not that this was anything but traditional in Hollywood then and now. Darryl's son, Richard, gave HIS paramour an important, if silent, part as Charlton Heston's girlfriend in "Planet of the Apes." It's GOOD to be the producer. Anyway, it has to be Zanuck's movie because it's a vast ensemble piece with none of the forty-two stars being given more than a few minutes of screen time.
There are no back stories at all. None of the characters, most of them based on real people drawn from Cornelius Ryan's blockbuster book, have wives or children. There are no flashbacks to anyone's happy boyhood, fishing barefoot from a pier. Nobody grew up in a dysfunctional family in the slums either. Nobody carries a picture of the girl back home.
The Americans and Brits speak English, the French speak French, and the Germans speak German. This means subtitles, which in turn means that if it were produced today nobody under the age of thirty would enjoy seeing it, since MTV and "Die Hard Forever" and "I Dismember Mamma" have no subtitles. One can almost hear the complaints of the kids sitting around chugging energy drinks and squirming with the effort to look and read at the same time. Well, maybe that's a little harsh. I'll make an exception. There would be no squirming among the kids in any household that has a copy of "The Origin of Species" on one of its bookshelves.
Aside from the expense and the massive logistical effort on display, it's not a bad movie. There are a few awkward moments in the script, true, such as when a solemn actor tells someone else, and the audience as well, that this is an important day and we should all try to remember it.
And, thank God, no speeches about patriotism. These guys on both sides are dying. The nationalism is on display and doesn't need to be spelled out. There's a good deal of irony too. It tempers the obvious heroism. Some German soldiers come out of a bunker with their hands up, crying "Bitte, bitte!" and a GI shoots them all down, tips his helmet back, and muses, "I wonder what 'Bitte, bitte' means." In "Saving Private Ryan", any Germans trying to surrender are automatically exterminated without qualms. But "The Longest Day" is a kind of transitional film. Those produced during and immediately after the war pretty much demonized the enemy. Those coming later in the 1960s and afterward were usually more "realistic" in that they had more blood, and the enemy, although a nuisance, was sometimes humanized. But if the enemy weren't demonized, they weren't sympathized with in any way. They were offed matter-of-factly, the way Dirty Harry shot his adversaries. Just bodies.
The British here are the kind who are jolly and brave and who hide their emotions carefully, as Richard Burton does. The Americans are good-natured complainers who practice seductive speeches in rudimentary French before jumping out of airplanes. The Germans are of two types -- the commanders who sit around sipping tea in palaces, and the men and junior officers at the front who frantically try to communicate with them while holding off an inexorable Allied force.
There are concessions to commercialism, as there almost inevitably will be. Some incidents are depicted that never took place. Some mistakes are skipped over (the frenetic and pointless gyrations of the airplanes carrying the parachutists). And Irene Demick has a hair style straight out of 1962. Of course, our side wins. Our side always wins. That's why you will never see a movie called "The Battle of the Java Sea" or "A Yank at Kasserine Pass." But it's a good movie, almost a documentary, and should be seen for its educational value alone because it isn't fictionalized like "Saving Private Ryan." It may not be as bloody as some people would prefer but it's instructive -- and it's so gol darned BIG that the grand sweep of this ineluctable, elephantine monster carries you along willy nilly.